Wednesday of the Third Week of Lent

Or what great nation has statutes and decrees
that are as just as this whole law
which I am setting before you today?

Sometimes we Christians get a bit too enthusiastic about Saint Paul’s attitude toward the Law. This “recovering Pharisee” was so taken with his new-found freedom and grace that he seemed to dis the Law of Moses. Like the former smoker who cannot bear the stench of an ashtray, Saint Paul could hardly bear the sweet fragrance of statutes, ordinances, decrees, precepts and commands. He had endured too many years of trying to please God by pleasing men and was fed up with living in the stultifying tradition of the Pharisees.

But of course law is important, and Saint Paul’s strong feelings about it only bear witness to its importance. Consider how difficult a road trip to Alaska might be if there was no law requiring us to drive on the right side of the road. You would encounter tens of thousands of drivers of vehicles large and small, fast and slow, and you would have to negotiate with each one as to which side will you pass. Pedestrians on a busy sidewalk sometimes run smack into each other; how much worse it would be in a car! Aren’t you glad there’s a law? But there wasn’t always such a law. A Roman pope first determined that folks should move to one side of the roadway as they crossed a bridge. He had called for a Holy Year in 1200 A.D. and the city was gridlocked with pedestrian pilgrims and their baggage. Order was restored only when he decreed, “Everyone move to the right!”

A good law enforced and accepted by everyone is so useful and beautiful that the Jews considered it a gift from God. The Bible is chock-a-bloc with Jewish gratitude to God for it. Psalm 119, which is the longest, celebrates the gift of the law. Every verse has a synonym of law. Clearly the psalmist and his people loved to contemplate the wonder of it. If you have ever contemplated with happy wonder the machinery of an airplane or the wizardry of a microchip, you might appreciate the Hebrew’s excitement over the Law.

A secular, enlightened society considers the law man-made, a set of principles upon which we should agree.  But the Jews saw more deeply God’s gift and treasure.

With the birth of Jesus, the Law of God became flesh and lived among us. This Child of Mary is all the rules, customs, traditions and rituals in human form, approachable, delightful and adorable.